The Crucial Role of DSC’s Gender and Sexualities Alliance Club

In a world where acceptance of diverse identities is still an ongoing battle, the journey of LGBTQ+ individuals towards self-acceptance is often marked by challenges. Clubs like GSA (Gender and Sexualities Alliance Club) seek to create a safe space for anyone interested. 

LGBTQ individuals struggle with their identity long before adulthood, or even teenage years. Questions about their identity and sexual orientation may arise very early on, and without proper representation, these kids can spend years battling internalized homophobia and self-hatred.

This experience is all too familiar for student Gavin Cox, the Vice President of the Gender and Sexualities Alliance club at DSC. 

“I grew up in a very Republican household, so the idea of homosexuality was very taboo,” said Cox. “I denied a lot of what I was feeling through puberty. I kind of became homophobic myself, in a sense.”

Surrounded by homophobia in his home life and at school, Cox finally found solace in his high school’s GSA club. The support he received from his queer friends, then and now, allow him to feel part of a community. 

Now as a member of GSA at DSC and the President of DSC’s Democratic Club, Cox feels free to express his authentic self. 

Fellow club member and secretary of GSA, Skyler Krampitz has a similar experience. 

“I came out to my best friend at the time,” said Krampitz. “Her reaction was ‘oh my god, me too!’”

While community support has been helpful to both Cox and Krampitz, not all club members have the luxury of being out to everyone. A student who wishes to remain anonymous told us their story.

This student is bisexual and did not have a good coming out experience because of the way their parents reacted. “At first when [their father] found out, he made me sit there and listen to him read the Bible to me basically, for like an hour,” they said.

Now, they feel like their sexual orientation is ignored and their parents remain in denial about it. This lack of acceptance and their religious beliefs have led this student to refrain from sharing that they are transgender.

While they feel supported by their friends, they feel isolated from their family, specifically from their parents. “[Their mother] says, ‘Oh you can tell me anything,’ but I can’t. You can’t tell your parents everything.”

While some of the club members are out, most still voice concerns about their public safety.

This student said, “At any moment someone could accidentally say my name in front of somebody that doesn’t know that I’m trans, and then it’s all over.” 

Others have experienced violence and homophobic slurs since high school.

“I once had a parent with their kid walking by coming into the high school, where they literally put their hand over their kid’s eyes when they got up to [the GSA] table and tried to move him away,” said Cox.

The prevalence of homophobia and the fact that many students still feel unsafe in their own homes is one of the motivations behind the formation of the GSA club at DSC.

GSA was created with the intention of providing a supportive environment for queer students. In a community where people often do not feel accepted, club members have access to a safe space where they are celebrated for their differences. 

GSA members meet every Monday from 1-2pm in the UCF building 150 in room 405. Meetings are open to anyone, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. On an average day, around 10 to 15 people will be present. Some meetings focus on socialization with their peers, others work to educate on queer history and some involve group activities. 

Though meetings are a smaller group of people, members have access to a Discord server where they can be in constant communication with their peers. The app has been such a successful outlet that graduated students remain active in discussions.

The key aspect of the club is to give everyone a break from their daily lives where they are allowed to be themselves and collaborate with like-minded people. 

“We believe that it is very important for LGBTQ people on campus to have a safe space where they can go and feel welcome,” Cox said. “They can relate to similar experiences, to know that they are not alone.”

Within the club they have created a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, held movie nights, made posters for events and fostered social connections. GSA can be seen at many school events promoting the club.

Leaders such as Kramptiz and President River Carroll have set up PowerPoints and used other educational resources to educate their peers about the long history of their community. 

One group activity was inspired by the use of flowers in the queer community to secretively identify themselves to one another. In the 1927 Broadway play, “The Captive”, a female character confessed her love for another woman with the use of violet flowers. The reaction caused the play to shut down permanently in France due to hateful protests. 

In response, it became tradition for the LGBTQ+ community to use different colored flowers to symbolize their gender identity and sexual orientation. 

“There is a flower code in LGBTQ history, where you would wear the flower and symbolize to other people who knew about it, ‘I’m gay.’” a club member who wishes to stay anonymous said. “We had fake flowers and made flower crowns with them.”

GSA takes opportunities to learn and teach others the importance of history, and they are able to express themselves creatively. 

Other times at meetings, members will put together presentations on powerful queer figures in history, such as highlighting famous queer women for Women’s History Month. All in all, knowing and appreciating history is imperative in understanding personal identity. 

“There is a lot of rich queer history,” Cox said, “and it’s important to know what people went through for us to be here today.”

Such significant pieces of history include the Stonewall Riots, the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Equal Rights and Liberation and the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, Cox explained. While the former two events were important moments in the United States’ gay rights movement, the latter is one instance of government suppression, suppression that is still enacted in legislation today. 

“There are so many laws that are being passed to directly impact us, like the Don’t Say Gay bill in public schools,” Krampitz said. She also noted the legislative efforts to allow doctors to deny LGBTQ individuals medical procedures. “Our government is discriminating against us,” Krampitz said, “and it just makes us feel that much more alienated from society.”

However, as Krampitz and Cox stated, there are ways to fight back. They encourage, especially among the youth, to vote and utilize the right to petition. “No matter what side you align yourself with, there is a more important issue: people’s rights to live and exist and to not be told they can’t,” Cox said. 

DSC’s GSA club devotes themselves to promoting diversity and inclusion. Participating students overwhelmingly agree that this club has given them the space to be themselves.